FIC.
UX research for the Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC), examining how visitors expected its website to be organized and using card sorts to guide clearer navigation.
Scope
Client
Duration
Role
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Where the research began
(01)
FIC needed a website newcomers could navigate without first learning its vocabulary.
The Foundation for Intentional Community (FIC) runs a directory of more than 1,000 intentional communities, places where people choose to live together around shared values, such as cohousing or ecovillages. The organization also offers courses, books, and memberships, and its website serves three groups: people new to intentional communities, people looking to join one, and people already living in one.
But the site’s navigation relied on the organization’s own terms, like “Communiversity,” its name for its learning programs, and FIC wanted to keep that name even if newcomers might not recognize it. As part of a website redesign, our research team set out to learn how visitors expected the site’s content to be grouped and labeled.
I worked with the research co-lead on two card-sorting studies. First, in an open card sort, participants from the three audience groups organized 20 topics from the site into groups that made sense to them and named each group. This showed us how participants grouped the content and what words they used.
Then, in a closed A/B card sort, six participants sorted 19 topics into one of two proposed menus, three per menu. The first used the design team’s categories and labels, while the second, our alternative, combined the groupings participants made in the open sort with names FIC wanted to keep. For each menu, we counted a mismatch whenever a participant placed a topic in a different category from the one proposed.
I set up both studies in UXtweak, an online card-sorting platform, and helped recruit participants. The co-lead and I then analyzed the results and presented our findings together at the final sprint demo.
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What the research revealed
(02)
Participants used everyday words, while “Directory” became a catch-all for some hard-to-place items.
Across the open and closed sorts, three findings stood out.
Everyday words and FIC’s own terms
When participants named their own groups in the open card sort, they often used familiar words such as “community,” “about,” “member,” and “learn.” FIC’s own terms told a more mixed story. In the first version of the closed sort, “Communiversity / Learn” had the fewest mismatches. Yet one participant described the name “Communiversity” as “unnecessarily complex” and found “Learn” straightforward. Pairing it with that plain word may have helped participants make sense of the category.
The directory as a catch-all
When participants weren’t sure where an item belonged, they sometimes put it under “Directory” or “Engagement.” “Directory” had the most mismatches in the first version and tied with “Engagement” in the second. Two participants understood “Directory” differently. One expected a sitemap and placed physical locations and miscellaneous items there, while the other thought it listed the organization’s councils.
Acronyms and hard-to-place items
Acronyms were difficult for people new to FIC. One participant said the cards with acronyms were hard because “I don’t know anything about this org, so I was guessing.”
Three items were especially hard to place. In both versions, at least two of three participants put each one outside its proposed category: “Affiliate Program” (a referral commission program), “Add Your Community” (a form for listing a community), and “BIPOC IC Council” (IC stands for intentional community). Perhaps the items were too specific, the menu labels too vague, or both. Either way, newcomers seemed to need more context to place them.
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What the research recommended
(03)
The navigation needed to keep FIC’s terms while leading with words newcomers already used.
Each recommendation addressed one of these findings.
Everyday words and FIC’s own terms
Although our research suggested “Communiversity” might be unclear to newcomers, FIC required us to keep the name. We worked within that constraint and recommended surrounding it with familiar menu labels that would give the term context.
The directory as a catch-all
We recommended making “Directory” a standalone link to FIC’s listings of intentional communities, with no subcategories, and using separate buttons for related actions that needed more explanation.
Acronyms and hard-to-place items
We recommended replacing organizational shorthand that could confuse newcomers, for example using “About Us” instead of “About FIC.” We also suggested moving items participants couldn’t place consistently out of the main menu and into buttons or page content with more context.
Our phase ended with these recommendations and a handoff to the design team. Before our study, “Communiversity” appeared in the main menu, while “Contact FIC” was listed under “About.” By late 2026, the site placed “Communiversity” under “Learn” and included “Contact” in the main menu. Both changes fit the direction we recommended, and later phases and other teams carried the redesign forward.
With three participants per version, the closed sort highlighted patterns worth investigating rather than showing which menu would work best. As next steps, we suggested testing “Communiversity” on its own, recruiting more participants, and running a tree test, which checks whether people can find items in a proposed menu.
“His ability to analyze research and clearly convey insights to cross-functional teams and clients was instrumental in driving user-centered design decisions and keeping all stakeholders aligned.”
Elijah-Justin Leano, UX Researcher, FIC (Tech Fleet)